More About Ed

Ed was dearly loved by all the kids and parents involved with the drum corps and everyone was devastated by his death. He was such a character and always brightened our lives. One thing about him that always made us laugh was the way he would knock the bird cages around. Our mother loved canaries and kept a few of them with their cages hung around the kitchen and living room. Two of her birds were named after a famous opera singer – one was Mario and the other was Lanza. Lanza’s cage was hung on a wall where our living room and dining room were joined. Many times Ed would take a broomstick and use it as a makeshift flagpole to demonstrate flag maneuvers he wanted the color guard to perform. He would spin and toss the broomstick in the house right near Lanza’s cage and of course, he would often hit the cage. Luckily for the bird Ed never knocked the cage off its bracket, but every time he hit it he would say, “One of these days I’m going to knock that damn thing right on the floor.” And we would all laugh. However, it wasn’t funny when we came home from Ed’s funeral and immediately noticed that Lanza’s was not hanging on the bracket, but was sitting on the floor exactly as if someone had knocked it there. The bracket was still securely attached to the wall and the ring on top of the cage used to hang it on the bracket was firmly intact, but the cage was on the floor.

After Ed’s death our mother continued working on the new uniforms for the drum corps. One night in particular, after working past midnight and being exhausted, she decided to call it quits for the day. All of the finished uniforms were hanging on a long rack in the hallway just outside of our parents’ bedroom. After our mother had fallen asleep, she had a dream that Ed and someone else she didn’t recognize had come into her room. In her dream Ed was excited about the new uniforms and told our mother he could see her sewing but he couldn’t see the uniforms. She told him she was too tired to get up and show him but if he wanted to see them, he could go out into the hall and turn on the light and see the uniforms hanging on the rack. A short while later our mother was awakened from her sleep by the hall light that had been turned on and was shining into her room.

The hall light being turned on could have been a coincidence, but it was beginning to become apparent to us that simple coincidences were not the answer. After the episode with the bird cage and the hall light going on, more and more strange things began to happen. There were times when our mother was walking down the steps in our house and she could feel someone right behind her. In addition, there were many times we would hear someone walking up and down the steps only to look and see no one there. Matches seemed to be a popular item too. We would often find burnt matches on the floor in the bedrooms or we would smell the pungent odor of sulfur without the physical evidence of matches. Our mother was certain that her children were not playing with matches because many times these incidents would occur when all of us were in school. Even to this day we all smell matches at various times.

Our mother would also often hear someone walking around in Mike’s room. Just about every house has a squeaky board or two and in our house there were a few upstairs in Mike’s room. Our parents’ room was directly underneath Mike’s and many times, late at night, our mother would hear the boards squeak in his room – a telltale sign that someone was up and about. Thinking Mike was awake, she would go up to check on him only to find him fast asleep in his bed. She would get back into bed and hear the boards squeaking again and once more, she’d make her way quietly upstairs to find Mike and everyone else sound asleep.

Even with all the activity taking place in our house around this time, we were somewhat reluctant to tell too many people about our experiences. At one point our mother did tell some of their friends who were involved with drum corps about the strange events that started after Ed’s death. One woman made a somewhat nasty comment. She said, “Well, if it’s Ed, why would he bother coming to your house? I would think he would rather be with his wife and children than you and your family.” We really don’t know if it was Ed, but if it was, who knows why he chose our family. We can’t explain what attracts these ghosts to our family or why they stay with us. All we know is that they’re here and they often make their presence known!